June, 2003

NO Meeting in June

We will be at the AAW Annual Symposium in Pasadena

The next meeting is July 12th

The May 24th meeting was held at Bob Pettit’s home (Thanks Mary for the excellent brownies). President Al Geller reiterated our participation in the AAW symposium June 26-29 were we will be responsible for the registration-area lathe on Thursday afternoon. This will be available for turning tops or other toys to be given to kids in area hospitals. We have also accepted the responsibility for clean up after the symposium on Sunday at about 3:00 p.m. Give Al a call if you haven’t already signed up to help. Also give him a call if you are interested in ridesharing to Pasadena. A signup sheet for this was begun at the meeting.

Bob Greenberg, President of the Wine Country Woodturners has arranged for AAW members from California to add stars to their name badges at the Symposium. Only Californians will have the stars. If you see someone with a star don’t hesitate to stop and say hello. Also Don Comer, President of the Glendale Woodturners Guild has announced that the Glendale Woodturners Guild’s “Trees to Treasures” and the AAW’s “Put A Lid On it” exhibitions will be open from June 14 through July 5. The two organizations will host a reception in the Gallery from 6:00 to 9:00 PM on Thursday, June 26. Everyone is welcome. There is no fee and light refreshments will be served. The show will be in the Brand Library Art Galleries, which are located at 1601 W. Mountain St., Glendale, CA.

Sam Turner brought us up to date on the status of our participation in the Ventura County Fair (July 30-August 10). The category booklet is now available on line.Click on the Home Art’s Department and look at Division 343-Wood Turning to see the 9 classes that have been assigned to us. IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT THAT WE SUBMIT AS MANY ITEMS AS POSSIBLE THIS YEAR TO VALIDATE OUR INTEREST IN PARTICIPATING AND HAVING A SEPARATE DIVISION. You can only enter one item per class so choose your pieces to cover as many classes as you can. We are responsible for arranging the judging for this division (Al Geller is working on this) and we will need to help with the general registration of home art’s items on July 18-20. In order to allow proper planning for this please call Sam Turner by July 1 to let him know how many pieces you plan to enter. Sam and Al will call us to sign up for helping with entry registration, and at the July meeting we will sign up to be in the booth and demonstrate on the lathe during the fair. Save these dates; it is a lot of fun and you do not need to be an experienced turner to participate (often two people will team up at the same time) the only requirement we have is that you are an AAW member for insurance coverage.

Les Merchant showed the two hooked tools he had made at home using the technique that Alan Lacer demonstrated for us in February. Les has offered to help anyone who wants to make their own. Then after an extensive show-n-tell session with pieces ranging from excellent beginning work to advanced technically challenging pieces we began the demonstration topic for the meeting. Bob Pettit discussed surface decoration of turned work. He illustrated this with his own superb work combining turning and chip carving. From simple out lines and acrylic painted designs on platters; to borders and designs on bowls and hollow forms; to elaborate “pictures” Bob is a master carver. Working mostly in Box Wood and with a single knife he turns the mundane into the exquisite. Bob then handed out blocks of wood, tracing paper, and knives and led us through an exercise in chip carving humming birds. He demonstrated how easy it is to learn the basics, and we learned how much skill and experience Bob brings to his work. A few photos from the meeting are included here and more of Bob’s work will be in the gallery in a few weeks.

At the July 19th meeting we will discuss our impressions and share the tips that we learned at the June Symposium (with so many demonstrations going on simultaneously we can’t be everywhere at once). Also Ron Lindsay will talk about sources, availability, and characteristics of locally grown wood.

The following photos taken at the May meeting are courtesy of Ron Lindsay.

Al Geller leading meeting.

Some of the Show-N-Tell work.

More Show-N-Tell.

Two plates turned and carved by Bob.

Bob’s turned box with chip caved lid.

More of Bob’s prize winning work.

Bob showing us proper knief technique.

Alan, Russ, and Warren hard at work.

Close up of first attempt at chip carving with Bob’s excellent tutelage.